A storm in a coffee cup.

My partner has terrible hearing and is constantly mistaking what I am saying to him. It would be ridiculously annoying if what he comes out with wasn’t so random and unusual. Where he pulls these language guesstimations from, I don’t know..

Today we were in a cafe and the lights had those string ball shades on them. I pondered aloud, “I wonder if they made these themselves?”

But somehow he heard “I wonder if they made these in spiders bellies?”.

In a bid to find something my kids will actually eat, and allow me to put in their lunch boxes I am trying out some different foods and recipes to see how they fare.

This one is the Apricot Balls recipe from The Organised Housewife.

I made it as per instructions, but found mine may have had too much coconut because they weren’t sticky enough to roll into balls. With no more apricots to add, I decided to use some silicone based ice cube trays and just pressed the mixture in, then put it in the fridge over night.

The chilled apricot bites popped out of the trays with ease, and look a bit cute too! The excessive amount of coconut in my mix made them slightly crumbly when you bite them, but for display and finger food purposes they do the job quite well.

Unfortunately, While little B likes them, C refused to try any and neither T or E liked them. 1 out of 4 isn’t enough for me to make it again. Darn fussy kids!

It feels like it should still only be the first week of the year. After Christmas we moved into our new amazingly lovely and spacious place – still trying to unpack and get organised but what can you do? I’m quite broke at the moment, due to the fact that after the settlement of the sale of my house went through I was left with far less money than I was hoping for, due to commission and fees and what not. Like 50% less than I had planned for. So, things have been tight. I did however manage to get some debts paid, and have just secured a consolidation loan so I can finally be rid of those evil credit cards. Hopefully, things should start to improve financially from here.

The kids started school a week late because I left it too late to order their school uniforms, I didn’t know when book collection was, and the kids had to go stay with family while I had my 3rd throat surgery. They are getting settled into their new school now though. As expected, E seems pretty confident talking to anyone and everyone, and I have no doubts that he will have made some good friends by the end of the week.

Miss C was who I had some concerns about as she is very shy until she gets to know people well. On the first day I was able to see just how tiny she is compared to others in her grade. C is in Grade 4, but she is a good foot shorter than most of the other students. I know she hates this. At her previous school there was always someone making fun of her for being small. Calling her a baby, and saying she should be in ‘prep’ because she is so short. No amount of comforting from me, about how short I was, how short her Aunt was, and how being short is not a bad thing at all could ease her mind. Something amazing happened on only the second day. Miss C, who has always had a severe dislike for sport of any kind, came home and asked if she could practice running. She told me about some running test thing that they did at school (which I still don’t understand, but will have to go and observe), and she seemed quite enthusiastic about it and asked if we could all exercise and run together as a family at home for practice. Amazing! This from a girl whose only interest seems to be obtaining funds in order to purchase her own Xbox so she can play video games all day (I don’t own any game consoles, so she only gets to play at her dads). I love what this school has done for her already.

Master T. He was excited but very nervous, I believe, on his first day. Outwardly he was very obliging and seemed fine, but holding him I could feel his heartbeat racing. One thing I am worried about for T is that because it is such a small school, with small classes, his little quirks may be more obvious than at his previous school. His teacher asked me if he experienced bullying at his past school (which he had not, no more than any other child), and this has made me a little paranoid that perhaps some of the kids weren’t nice to him. He said he had friends to play with at lunch etc., so I’m hoping things will work out.

My surgery went okay, but I haven’t ‘tested’ it out yet. If I’m able to I’ll try to get to roller derby tonight so I can give my refreshed trachea a whirl. Lord knows I need the exercise, after putting on more than 10 kilos. I have never been the size I am now without having been pregnant. I am most definitely not pregnant. Though I have been having some scares lol. I have a Mirena and my monthlies are now non existent, so I make sure to do a test each month anyway just in case. The Man and I have 5 kids between us, we do not need more. We couldn’t possibly afford the financial or mental cost of bringing another child into this family. As much as I’m curious to see what our combined genes would produce, it’s just not possible. Or sensible. Even a puppy would be a huge no-no right now, so to stalkers that are reading for more rumor seeds <- not pregnant. Sorry guys, I’m just fat. Find something else to talk about that isn’t me and my family.

It’s amazing how little some people must have going on in their lives in order to make them spread rumors about others. To quote from one of my favourite books:

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn? - Mr Bennet; Pride & Prejudice

Christmas is finally over! Not that I really put a lot of effort into this year, but it was still a fairly stressful time.

We had our early Christmas with the kids and they have gone to stay with their Dad for a few days. While they are gone M and I are taking the opportunity to clean and begin packing. Packing sucks arse. It really does. The only good thing about it is that it gives you the chance to throw out or re-home a lot of stuff.

One thing I like to do when moving house is sell off as much old furniture or white goods as I can to reduce how much I actually have to move, then buy new stuff later and have it delivered to the new place. Am I the only one who does that?

It actually turned out to be a good time of year for packing, boxes are super easy to find because everyone has just received their Chrisco/Castle Hampers and have a fuck tonne of boxes to get rid of.

Yesterday marked 1 month of M and I officially being in a relationship. As far as my previous relationships are concerned, this last month has been better than any number of days, months or years I spent with any other person. That can only be a good thing.

I had my early Christmas with the kids on Saturday night, as they will be at their dad’s for ‘real’ Christmas. So now that it’s over I decided I may as well start packing up all the red, green & gold and start getting ready to pack for moving.

To help with the moving process I’ve been selling off items that I don’t really need, and things I just can’t be bothered moving. So, when I came across a post in a local “freecycle” group asking for Christmas decorations I figured I didn’t really need to take all my decorations with me to the new place. A new place will need new Xmas stuff, right?

I inboxed the person for their address and then packed up almost every Christmassy item I had. This included the decorations and lights off the tree, my tablecloth and runner, and other Santa laden paraphernalia, along with some boxes of chocolate biscuits, crackers and nuts etc (hamper type stuff) and delivered it all to a very grateful family.

The family with 4 children had recently moved into emergency accommodation in order to be close to their surgeon. One of the children had been in hospital for the past 3 months and recently received a special type of stomach surgery. As if that isn’t enough, the family who had been living out of town prior to their hospital stay, came home to a ransacked house. Hence the emergency accommodation and the need for basically everything.

The mother told me they are hoping to move into a proper rental soon and start over, but in the meantime they had to stay there. The children were excited to get the big bag of Christmas things, but I wish I had more to offer them.